Parkland Memorial Hospital will be ready for the government survey that will determine future funding, its top leaders vowed Tuesday.

The county facility has completed 95 percent of the mandated corrective-action plan, said officials overseeing the systemwide upgrades.

The hospital must pass a surprise inspection by health regulators to retain more than $400 million in annual federal funding. The inspectors will show up between May and August.

“We will be ready,” said Ron Laxton, Parkland’s interim chief operating officer. Laxton was hired a year ago to oversee the improvements.

As of late February, Parkland had satisfied all but 24 of the 499 safety reforms ordered by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The shortfall could drop to 17 by the end of March.

“There are no show-stoppers within that 5 percent,” Laxton told the hospital’s board.

The tax-supported hospital must complete its overhaul by April 30. That includes new patient-safety procedures, a retraining of most staffers, a massive reworking of safety procedures and some new construction.

The effort has cost about $75 million.

In late 2011, a team of patient-safety experts began overseeing Parkland during the yearlong improvement process. Alvarez & Marsal Healthcare Industry Group won the nearly $7 million contract to guide the project.

The monitors’ initial 270-page report identified multiple threats to patient safety, including filth, neglect and medical errors. The problems were spread throughout the hospital.

“There is not a part of this hospital that has not been touched by the corrective action plan,” the monitoring team’s leader, Peter Urbanowicz, told the board Tuesday.

The overhaul has focused on unclogging the emergency department. In the past, patients could wait 10 hours or longer to see a physician, or they would leave without receiving care.

As a remedy, more space was added for patient screenings, and an urgent-care clinic was beefed up for nonemergency patients. Beds also were freed up throughout the hospital to speed up admissions.

The hospital also placed its psychiatric services, including its troubled psych ER, under the management of privately owned Green Oaks Hospital of Dallas.

By moving patients more efficiently through the ER, Urbanowicz said, Parkland cleared up backlogs in other departments. That eased overcrowded conditions and overworked employees.

“You have to remember the tremendous volumes of patients Parkland saw from December through February, and the fact so many patients could move through the hospital safely,” Urbanowicz said.

“It is a safe hospital,” agreed Kathleen Murphy, a member of the oversight team.

Still, Parkland’s board wanted assurance that nothing was missed as the deadline loomed.

“We’re 35 days out from when we’ve got to be ready. What are your concerns?” board member Eddie Reaves asked hospital officials.

Laxton said he was concerned about a communications lapse.

“We need to make sure that 9,000 employees have all the information they need, and that may change from moment to moment,” he told the board.

In February’s compliance report, the monitors stressed that Parkland’s agreement with UTSW “may require new contract language to more particularly identify and set forth quality indicators and measures.” Specific wording wasn’t suggested.

The report also found 87 percent compliance by supervising doctors, who mainly were failing to document their oversight. The medical staff also struggled to perform physicals and take medical histories in a timely manner.

“Medical chiefs are getting the physician’s name and following up,” Laxton said.

Parkland began the cleanup in 2011 after reports in The Dallas Morning News described serious gaps in patient safety, including inadequate supervision of resident doctors.

As with other monthly compliance reports, Parkland did not release the February update.

It offered only a summary at the board’s monthly meeting.

The board received a more detailed report during its executive session Monday. The News obtained a copy of the full report from CMS.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Memorial Hospital are known for their contributions to medical research and public health. But have those accomplishments come at a cost to quality healthcare? The Dallas Morning News investigates patient safety and allegations of lax supervision of doctors in training at the public institutions.